Studio session offers rare look into local music scene

Maitejosune Urrechaga, left, and Tony Kapel are the South Florida band Pocket of Lollipops. On Saturday, Jan. 28, the duo will present a marathon recording session titled "Lop-Off Sessions" at the Girls' Club Collection in Fort Lauderdale. (Pocket of Lollipops/Courtesy)

Music fans are invited to take a behind the scenes look of a live recording session at the Girls' Club. The Fort Lauderdale gallery is putting on the Lop Off Sessions, a unique concept that fuses art with music.

"It's meant to be an art exhibit - a performance piece in a sense," said organizers Maitejosune Urrechaga and Tony Kapel. "Audience interaction is being quiet when the vocals are being done and being part of the whole mess-ups and so-ons."

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The duo founded the indie label, Houndstooth Cottage. They're also the musicians behind Pocket of Lollipops, a band that plays "posh punk music leaving the listener in a mind-melding frenzy," according to its Twitter page.

This will be the fifth edition of the Lop Off Sessions and the first in Broward County.

The free event offers a rare opportunity for the public to see musicians at work. Normally, the recording process is open only to the band and producers.

The concept of recording in the gallery space was partly inspired by the double entendre title of the current Girls' Club exhibition, "Pink Noise: Flexing the Frequency." It makes a statement about the color pink and its association with traditional femininity and "femaleness," said curator Sarah Michelle Rupert.

'Pink Noise' is a technical term that describes random noises having equal energy per octave and more low-frequency components than white noise. It is linked to how humans hear, rather than what they hear.

Rupert explains that pink noise exists as a human construct. Similarly constructed on perception rather than actuality, is the use and overuse of the color pink when referring, marketing to, or defining female gender.

For the Lop Off Sesssions, Kapel and Urrechaga mobilized a group of eight musicians to collaborate on the project. They include Raffa Jo, Bows & Ties, Farina & Didi, Bison Twins, Tete-a-tete, Lori Garrote and Margaret McInroe.

The recorded songs will be available digitally, on CD and cassette with a limited edition of hand pressed vinyl records for sale.

The Lop Off Sessions take place from 4 to 8 p.m. Jan. 28 at the Girls' Club, 117 NE Second St. in Fort Lauderdale. For information, visit GirlsClubCollection.org.